Our special BradCast coverage of the Impeachment Trial of Donald John Trump continues on Day 2 of the Democratic House Managers’ opening argument — which could well be their closing argument as well, if Republicans continue to block subpoenas for contemporaneous documentation and first-hand eye-witnesses like Trump’s former National Security Advisor John Bolton and Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney. [Audio link to show follows summary below.]
Before we get to our impeachment coverage today, however, some less-than-fantastic news from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, who have, for the first time in the more than 70 year history of their infamous “Doomsday Clock”, moved its minute hand inside the two-minute mark (where it was set in 2018 and at the height of the Cold War) before “midnight.” We are now, according to the Bulletin’s board of advisers, just 100 symbolic seconds from “midnight”, thanks to growing threats of nuclear weapons following the dissolution of landmark arms control pacts and the ever-increasing acceleration of our climate crisis. “We are now expressing how close the world is to catastrophe in seconds — not hours, or even minutes,” according to Rachel Bronson, the Bulletin’s president and CEO. “We now face a true emergency — an absolutely unacceptable state of world affairs that has eliminated any margin for error or further delay.” The Bulletin also cited the increasing threat of cyberattacks in their explanation as one of “multiple existential threats.”
Meanwhile, one of world’s greatest threats, Donald Trump, stands trial for removal from office in the U.S. Senate. Not that many who watch Fox “News” would understand exactly why, given that the pretend “news” outlet has, unlike CNN and MSNBC, been cutting away from their exceedingly truncated live coverage of the proceedings to carry their regular programming, on which they are lying about what is happening in the actual trial. What their viewers have not heard was the detailed, granular evidence revealing how Trump abused the power of his office to withhold nearly $400 million in military assistance from Ukraine in hopes of extorting the war-torn nation to agree to announce an investigation of Joe Biden and an evidence-free, Russia-generated claim that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election on behalf of Hillary Clinton. It was done in hopes of cheating in the 2020 election.
The chronology of those events was expertly detailed by lead House Manager Adam Schiff on Wednesday, along with the other House Managers. At key moments in their presentations, each pointed out how existing documentation and eye-witness testimony is currently unavailable to the trial, being withheld at the orders of the President, and how that information should and could be made available now, if Republican Senators agree to do so. If not, Schiff warned, “the truth will come out” eventually anyway.
But GOP Senators have clearly calculated that, for most of them, it will be better to have that damning information come out later, after they have voted to acquit, rather than before they cast such a vote. All of this, ironically (or hypocritically) enough, as a number of Republican Senators have been complaining to Fox “News” (where viewers have no clue what’s actually going on) and elsewhere, that they have not learned anything new from the Democrats’ presentation.
On Thursday, Democrats detailed the legal and Constitutional underpinnings of the first Article of Impeachment against Trump for Abuse of Power, with House Manager Jerrold Nadler describing the allegations as “overwhelmingly supported by the evidenced amassed by the House” and “among the most serious charges ever brought against a President.” The Chair of the Judiciary Committee went on to detail how the President’s conduct in attempting to pressure a foreign nation to help him cheat in an American election is without precedent since the nation’s founding and is “wrong, dangerous and captures the worst fears of our founders and the Constitution.” Nadler characterized Trump’s extortion scheme as one that “puts even President Nixon to shame,” as the President and his defenders offer the “terrifying” argument that they see “no limits on his power or on his ability to use his public office for private gain.”
He also played clips of Trump’s own impeachment attorney, Alan Dershowitz, from before the Bill Clinton impeachment in 1998, when he argued that a violation of a statutory crime is not necessary before bringing charges of High Crimes and Misdemeanors and then-Representative, now-Senator Lindsey Graham making a similar case during his own presentation against Clinton while serving as a House Manager during that 1999 Impeachment Trial.
That’s just some of our special coverage — and debunkery — in today’s packed program, which ends with Desi Doyen and our latest Green News Report as Big Oil tries to rebrand itself as an opponent of climate change (hold your laughter); Trump beclowns himself again at Davos; a new study finds far worse drinking water contamination in the U.S. than previously estimated; and teen climate action superstar Greta Thunberg dresses down the elites at the World Economic Conference in Davos by telling them to end their investments in fossil fuels and start behaving as if they actually love their own children…
At least the historians will benefit from these hearings. We the People won’t benefit since Trump isn’t going to be found culpable and will remain in office.